


Clarity

by orphan_account



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: But this is how I feel now, Canon Compliant, F/M, I’m sorry if I just ruined your day, You’re all going to hate this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26286100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Death brings a sense of clarity to Jaime, leading him to face a painful truth.Based on a series of comments Gwen made in interviews about a year ago, and I haven’t been able to forget.Don’t blame me.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	Clarity

He’d drifted aimlessly through the ruins for what felt like months. Time had no meaning any more. He watched as soldiers in different armours moved about. It had been important once, but he could no longer remember why. 

Things were hazy, unreal. He couldn’t say why he stayed, but he had the sense of waiting for something. Or someone. Someone who had been special to him.

Cersei was gone. He knew that for certain. He would have felt it if she’d been there, somehow still existing in the remains of the Red Keep.

It wasn’t her he was waiting for. 

He wasn’t sure why he waited. Only that he needed to.

People came and went. He thought he recognised some of their faces. They had been important once too.

He knew his brother was still alive. He had been locked in a cell, then moving around freely. He saw him sometimes. Tyrion was quieter, sadder than he’d been before. Less jokes. But still there. That gave him a sense of comfort. 

It got harder to stay, like the smoke gradually being dispersed by the wind. It would be easy to give up, to fade away. But he waited.

He finally saw her in the White Tower. Her new gold armour shone in the weak afternoon sun. It was a surprise to see her in something besides the deep blue set he’d had made for her. For some reason it made a knot form in his stomach, cold and hard.

For a few days he followed her, sometimes almost close enough to touch. If he’d still had hands to touch with. Watched her work, watched her talk to people. All the while the knot in his stomach grew tighter.

Death had brought a strange sense of clarity about so many things. And finally it brought clarity about her, about the two of them. This was what he’d been waiting for.

She was working one evening in the room that used to be his, the room where he’d given her Oathkeeper, so long ago now.

No reason to wait any longer.

“I’m sorry, Brienne,” he told her. He knew she couldn’t hear him, but he said it all the same.

“I didn’t want to leave, you know. I was happy. I really was. I thought you were too. I thought, I hoped, we could be. Together. I was wrong, wasn’t I? There could never have been a future for us. Even if I’d stayed. It wasn’t really what you wanted.”

It hurt to admit, but there was no escaping the truth of it.

He watched her face, calm and serious as always.

“I loved you,” he continued. “I’ll always love you. I don’t think I could stop if I tried. I never really expected you to love me too. I hoped that maybe you would, somehow.”

So stupid, he thought. Cersei had been right.

“I don’t think Cersei ever really loved me either, even though I loved her too.”

Was it a waste of a life to love and never be loved in return, he wondered. Was it a waste of a heart? Had he wasted his, giving it to two women who didn’t feel the same for him?

Father was right, I am a slow learner.

He remembered all the things he’d dreamt of, the future he’d wished for on all the nights he’d laid beside her in Winterfell.

“I would have married you. I wanted so much to go to Tarth. I wanted to walk on a beach with you. I used to think about that, about our children playing in the sand. But you never wanted that. You wanted to be a knight, not a wife.”

He couldn’t blame her for that. But you couldn’t have been both, Brienne? Does this make you happier than I could have done?

He wasn’t sure he wanted an answer to that.

“It doesn’t really matter now,” he continued. “I hope this makes you happy, I truly do. I can’t think of anyone better for the job.”

He looked around the room again, once so familiar to him. She’d left Oathkeeper lying on the table beside her. It stirred memories, once treasured, now painful.

“I gave you my heart,” he whispered. “I thought you understood that. Maybe I should have told you more plainly. Would it have made any difference if I had?”

Somehow he doubted it. She couldn’t have changed the way she felt any more than he could. The past few days had shown him the truth. She had already moved on, already got over him. Perhaps he had never meant that much to her in the first place, if she’d never really loved him.

He wasn’t angry, or even disappointed. But the sadness sat like a cold weight on his chest. How was it possible for a heart to hurt this much when it was no longer beating?

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry for a lot of things. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough for you.”

No reason to stay any longer. He wondered why he’d waited as long as he had. 

Did I really need to learn this truth? 

Perhaps he had needed to. The room seemed to grow hazier around him. There was nothing to keep him there anymore. What little sense of his self he had left gradually dissipated as he faded away into nothing.


End file.
